The issue with it is that dividing by GDP rather than, say, population or total energy used is kind of disingenuous. For instance, France's 2007 GDP can't be compared to Germany's 2022 GDP, so it's extremely hard to ave an idea of what you're comparing.
You can see the per capita numbers on the same site and it's the same basic story.
One of the anti-German memes going around is that their decarbonisation is via deindustrialization, so per GDP helps avoid that accusation.
Meanwhile the USA, which has the most nuclear plants and yet is clearly worse than Germany and the EU average, somehow gets a free pass. How odd.
No catching up happened, because France also improved in the meantime, despite building no new plant in the 2007-2022 interval. And that's the issue with this measurement: it measures plenty of parasitic information. For instance, GDP growth between the 90's and now explains a large part of what you're highlighting.
Here's another chart from your site showing carbon intensity [1] which shows the improvement in carbon per energy generated is only a small part of the improvement shown in your graph.
And here's a chart [2] showing how GDP growth is the dominating factor for Germany's evolution in your graph.
[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-consumption-ca...
[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/kaya-identity-co2?country...
Thanks to renewables: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
The difference has been cleaner energy use (e.g. better car motors) and cleaner production on non-electric energy.
Moreover ~60% of France's final energy is obtained by burning fossil fuels => France must electrify (replace fossil fuel by electricity) => produce more gridpower => deploy new gridpower-producing equipment and such heavy industry thingies cannot be built overnight.
Upon an economic viewpoint electrifying is facilitated by the sheer availability of low-priced electricity.
> Renewables did compensate nuclear's underproduction
The underproduction episode in 2022 was mostly handled thanks to imports and consumer sobriety.
> Moreover ~60% of France's final energy is obtained by burning fossil fuels
Yeah, that's my point. France would be better served by electrifying its non-electric energy usages rather than trying to replace one clean production by another.
> => deploy new gridpower-producing equipment and such heavy industry thingies cannot be built overnight.
France has a healthy margin before needing to rush production, with electricity usage going down for two decades, and a significant share of its power being exported currently.
> The underproduction episode in 2022 was mostly handled thanks to imports and consumer sobriety.
Source?
> France would be better served by electrifying its non-electric energy usages rather than trying to replace one clean production by another.
I disagree:
Renewables-produced electricity reduces fossil the amount -fuel-produced electricity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-fossil-renewa...
A large part of resources needed by electrification isn't needed to build electricity-producing equipment.
Producing more electricity enables us to contain its price, boosting electrification.
Starting right now to build in order to replace 40-years old nuclear plants (on average) seems adequate to me. New nuclear (Flamanville-3 EPR) isn't adequate (6x times overcostly, at least 12 years late).
> France has a healthy margin before needing to rush production,
Electrification has to ramp up, therefore if everything goes as planned it will soon be over. Waiting is dangerous.
> with electricity usage going down for two decades
Production nearly-flat from 2004 until COVID: https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
> a significant share of its power being exported currently.
The challenge (getting rid of fossil fuels and the necessary powergrid, see ENTSO-e) is at continental-scale.
Why the hell would you show me the same graph I showed you earlier, but with only 3 years of history? That graph, over time, shows that fossil hovers around 10%, has been for decades now. Renewables is not decreasing fossil use here.
> A large part of resources needed by electrification isn't needed to build electricity-producing equipment.
As France is a market economy, the issue isn't resources, money is.
> Starting right now to build in order to replace 40-years old nuclear plants
Here is the issue: you don't give a fuck about CO2, all you care about is for renewables to replace nuclear, another clean energy source. All of your discourse is warped and dishonest because you want to pretend that you care about catbon emissions when, in fact, you don't.
If you cared about carbon emissions you would focus on means to lower carbon emissions: electrifiying.
I quoted it 4 days ago (see above). I propose my interpretation of it, for the objective reader to make his mind. Renewables' share is up, therefore they replace fossil fuels because without renewables France should burn more fossil fuels.
>> A large part of resources needed by electrification isn't needed to build electricity-producing equipment.
> As France is a market economy, the issue isn't resources, money is.
If in your opinion each and every resource (expertise, material...) used to deploy electricity-producing plants is 100% adequate for electrifying let's say we live in distinct universes.
> Here is the issue: you don't give a fuck
No arguments, therefore you rant about what (in your opinion) I think. This is moot.
> If you cared about carbon emissions you would focus on means to lower carbon emissions: electrifiying.
I already explained, above, why deploying electricity-producing plants is just as important and urgent. You didn't even try to counter-argument.
Once again the declining share is nuclear. Fossils are stable as the data you quote shows.
> If in your opinion each and every resource (expertise, material...) used to deploy electricity-producing plants is 100% adequate for electrifying
My point is that this is irrelevant since the bottleneck is money. We don't live in a command economy where material resources and workers are assigned by the state on a given project.
> You didn't even try to counter-argument.
Why would I try when we're at the point where you don't even acknowledge raw data?
OMG, is it a joke? Consumption is stable, OK? Nuclear produced less, OK? Therefore renewables compensated for nuclear declining production, OK? Therefore burning more fossil fuels was not necessary, OK? Therefore renewables replaced them, OK?
> the bottleneck is money
My point is solid even given this perspective: the way public money is used is of paramount importance: government recently ordered new nuclear reactors, and also subsidizes renewables in order to compensate past huge subsides to nuclear. More money here, less money there.
> We don't live in a command economy where material resources and workers are assigned by the state on a given project.
Read above.
> you don't even acknowledge raw data
Raw data, as explained, shows that renewables enabled France to avoid burning more fossil fuel. This is a fact, like it or not.
In low renewables availability episodes, there isn’t more fossil production, we simply ramp nuclear up.
Nope. This is provably false, and even the pertinent official authority (RTE) says so: https://x.com/factsory/status/1712155368304898137
Details:
And both videos you quote state clearly that the production program is built using merit order, in which renewables always come first.
You didn't watch or understand them. The first thread referenced, on x.com, offers a link towards https://www.youtube.com/live/xP4jL4b_Nnk?si=P4X_qMV9vtkpVD7z... This guy is RTE's official representative. Please listen to what he says, and let me know whether you persist to deny or reckon.
> merit order
A technical merit order, established to optimize and therefore to prefer the most adequate (overall) source. It is enforced for ages and for all sources, it isn't some arbitrarily established rule aiming at hurting poor nuclear lil'baby. If nuclear cannot compete it will disappear. The processus already started.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity?tab=chart&t...